About the talk:

This talk begins with a deceptively simple question: what is conflict? What is our normative conception of conflict and could there be others? By examining the case of Palestine-Israel, Mor will demonstrate some of the implications and limitations of the common notion of conflict, inherited from the European Enlightenment. Arguing that literature is not separate from but rather integral to conflict and violence, Mor turns to the speculative realm of literary works to diagnose other mechanisms of conflict, show their specific modes of operation, and analyze their production of ideologies and identities in Palestine-Israel.

About the speaker:

Liron Mor is an associate professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. Her research is interdisciplinary in nature, spanning the fields of critical and political theory, Hebrew and Arabic literatures, translation and visual studies, and critiques of law, conflict, and colonialism. Mor is particularly interested in local conceptualization of colonial and racial processes as expressed in the cultures of Palestine-Israel. Her book, Conflicts: The Poetics and Politics of Palestine-Israel, was published by Fordham University Press in January 2024. She is currently working on a second book project that examines intentionality as a rhetorical, political, and legal racialization mechanism by focusing on the colonial conditions experienced by both Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews.